Casarocka

Note: this post is part of the Défi XVIIIe, a blogging challenge to write 5 posts about 18th-century related topics within a year. It said nothing about the language the posts had to be in, so there!

Pour les francophones: tous les articles dont le sujet est en anglais seront dorénavant écrits dans cette langue.

 

Casanova is a BBC mini-series from 2005, starring Peter O’Toole and David Tennant, better known to geeks around the world as the Tenth Doctor. Rather than an historically accurate rendition of Histoire de ma vie (which is already laden with lies anyway), these three episodes are a very free, very rock ‘n’ roll adaptation trying to convey the flamboyant spirit of the character. If you already know Giacomo Casanova’s life, surprises will obviously be limited, and from the escape from the Leads of Venice to Damiens’ atrocious execution, the plot is a crazy remix of the famous traveler’s “greatest hits”.

Costume are sometimes a bit of an eyesore, especially in the first episode, and more reminiscent of 1960s French swashbuckling movies than of other modern takes on the Enlightenment such as Plunkett & McLeane or Brotherhood of the Wolf. The BBC obviously couldn’t afford too many extras, but did land some pretty awesome locations. It’s always a pleasure to see Dubrovnik on the screen, especially when it is smartly reused like this.

Overall, from the score to dance moves to general acting style, I really enjoyed the blatantly anachronistic choices, culminating in a dressing scene in the opening credits straight out of Saint Seya.

However, the series tone is not fully humorous and does get more somber towards the end, as the love story with Henriette gets more heart-wrenching and friends are lost. Peter O’Toole moves from bantering old man to lover in pain and David Tennant shows he can switch from overactive social butterfly to dead serious expert on mid-life crisis. My favorite scenes in this phase notably include the following lines:

Giacomo Casanova: Men I understand. I know what men think about, all day long. Those stupid little inches, driving you mad every waking hour. I know exactly what’s going on in your head. Is it big? Is it big enough? Is it hard enough, will it work every time on demand; cause that’s the only thing, that is the only bastard question – am I any good in bed? Is every other man better than me? Is every other man bigger and faster and slower and longer and deeper and harder – what am I doing wrong? How do I find out, cause no one ever talks about it, no one ever says. How can I ever find out what I’m doing wrong?

The combination of mood swings and anachronisms did make me reach a point of overdose in the Naples scene. While I found the references to both the Sadean and fascist components of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom interesting, I must admit that the visual kei -inspired looks where a tad too much for me at this point.  On a similar note, BBC’s Casanova must have been one more thing that inspired the horrid Mozart, l’opéra rock (for more on this topic check out my previous post).

So all in all, a very entertaining mini-series, not for the historically faint of heart but rather one more proof that raping history can produce beautiful offspring.